As Rad helped Trixie out of the car, the unmerciful Texas wind whipped her hair and sang mournfully in her ear, holding her, pulling her close. But Trixie fought at the wind, her thoughts turning to the rolling green hills of Arkansas. And she desperately wished she could turn back time.
Time might have changed Trixie, but time had not changed the ranch. The red-stained, open barn still stood at a slanted angle beside the dirt lane, looking as if the next strong wind might just knock it over. But Trixie knew this old barn had weathered everything, from gentle rains to fierce, whirling tornadoes. And yet it stood.
Off to the right were the big rectangular stables, their planked walls painted the same aged red shade as the barn. As the wind rushed through the long, cool stable corridors, the smell of fresh hay and pungent manure assaulted her senses and touched her with such a sensory remembrance, she had to close her eyes to keep the tears from falling. She could almost hear her father’s deep-throated laughter floating along on that wind. She could see herself and Logan, young and carefree, walking the horses, cleaning the stalls, stealing a kiss in a dark, cool alcove.
Out beyond the barn and stables, out beyond the screened-in cookhouse and the narrow barracks that served as the bunkhouse, the pine-covered hills that formed the beginnings of the Ouachita Mountains lifted and flowed like a green velvet blanket tossed across a rumpled bed.
Everything about the place that Brant had simply called The Ranch, was rumpled and slightly off center. It was as run-down and down home as they came. Nothing fancy, no frills—just a good, solid working ranch that included cattle, sheep and pigs, along with corn, cotton, produce and hay. Certainly nothing to be ashamed of, but nothing to shout about, either, as her father used to say.
Pamela had always hated this place.
Trixie had always loved it.
And missed it.
Now she stepped out of the rental car she’d picked up at the Little Rock airport, to look toward the west where the small lodge stood on a pine-shaded hillside. Brant had built his modest house there, so he could wake up each morning with a perfect view of the surrounding peaks and valleys. Off in the distance the mountains presented a muted, watercolor vista of rock and trees. Brant had loved his view of this part of the Ozark Plateau. He had liked seeing his little domain as he stood on the wide, posted porch with his first cup of coffee.
Now, the A-frame, log-cabin-style house looked forlorn and lonesome, a bittersweet reminder to Trixie of all that she had lost. Her father had built the house as a retreat for Pamela, hoping to mend the great tear in their doomed marriage. But Pamela had shunned his gift and him. Trixie wondered if her mother felt any guilt or remorse over that now. She knew she certainly did.
In a few hours the meager staff would gather together not far from the brown-logged lodge, underneath a great live oak that stood alone like a sentinel on one of those rolling hills, to watch Branton Nelson Dunaway be put to rest in the earth he loved. Trixie had arrived early to make sure everything had been arranged. The funeral home in Little Rock would bring her father’s remains in a few hours.
Right now she needed this time to readjust to being here, to steel herself against seeing Logan again. She just wanted to stand here in the sandy driveway and look out over what now belonged to her.
Rad wanted her to sell it, take the money and run.
“We won’t have time to fool with some run-down ranch in Arkansas, darling. We’ll be so busy with my law practice and your consulting work I don’t see how you can be in two places at once.”
“I won’t have to be there, Rad. The Ranch has a very capable foreman.”
“That Maxwell fellow? You don’t even know him that well. For all we know he might decide to take you for a ride now that Brant’s gone. From everything Harlan’s told me, the place barely breaks even as it is. No, I think it’d be best to get rid of it. We’ll invest the money. I’ll call my broker first thing once you’ve taken care of the sale.”
Trixie closed her eyes and leaned back against the rented Nissan, images of the past she’d tried to bury springing up like wildflowers in her mind. Was that why she’d considered selling the ranch—to get rid of any traces of her great shame? Now she had to wonder why she’d even agreed to sell it at all. How in the world could she tell Logan that she wanted to sell the land he loved so much, the only home he’d known since he was a teenager?
Logan Maxwell heard the slam of a car door on the other side of the barn. Dropping his paintbrush, he found a rag on a nearby shelf and tried unsuccessfully to clean the white paint off his hands. Then he headed toward the front of the building, his heart pumping, his nerve endings on full alert, his whole body coiled tightly against seeing the woman he knew would be waiting on the other side.
Trixie.
Then he saw her standing there with her eyes closed and her head thrown back as she invited the wind to kiss her face. She wore designer jeans and a pair of hand-tooled buttery tan boots—he would bet she’d had them specially made in Austin, and a bright pink-and-green-colored Western-style shirt—probably a Panhandle Slim—and she looked about as out of place as a Barbie doll at a G.I. Joe convention.
She also looked beautiful. Her hair was still that same honeyed hue of blond, although she’d cut it—no, she’d paid an overpriced hairdresser to cut it—to a becoming, layered bob that framed her face with sleek flips and. soft swirls. Still tall and cool, still the darling of Dallas, still the belle of the ball. He couldn’t see her eyes, but he knew the color was a deep, pure blue, same as the Arkansas sky over his head. He couldn’t take his own eyes away from her, though, so he leaned there against the support of the rickety barn and allowed himself this one concession while he compared the real-life woman to the girl he’d watched walk away so long ago.
He’d had an image of this woman in his mind for the past eight years, an image that had warred within his subconscious, an image that at times had haunted him, at other times had comforted him. He’d tried so very hard to put Tricia Maria out of his mind. But she wouldn’t disappear. It had taken her father’s death to bring her back to him in the flesh.
Now he used bitterness as his only weapon against the surge of emotions threatening to erupt throughout his system.
He had so many questions; he needed so many answers.
So he remained silent and just stared at her.
Trixie opened her eyes, feeling the heat from the sun on her tear-streaked face at about the same time she felt someone watching her. It didn’t take her long to figure out who that someone was.
Logan.
She stared across the expanse of the dirt driveway, to the spot where he leaned with his arms crossed over his chest, just inside the open barn doors. In her mind she held the memory of a young man in his early twenties, muscled and tanned, with thick wisps of brown hair falling across his impish, little-boy face. This Logan was the same as the one in her memories, yet different. He still wore his standard uniform of faded Levi’s and chewed up Ropers she remembered in her dreams. A battered Stetson, once tan, now a mellow brown, sat on his head. The torn T-shirt, smeared with grease and dirt, told her he still worked as hard as anybody around there, and…he obviously still wore the attitude, the whole-world’s-out-to-dome-in attitude, that had attracted her to him in the first place.
Only now, a new layer had been added to his essence, along with the crow’s feet and the glint in his brown-black eyes. He’d matured into a full-grown man, his muscles heavier, more controlled, broader, his expression hardened, more intense, deeper.
He looked bitter and angry and hurt.
He looked delicious and vulnerable and lost.
And he looked as if he’d rather be any place on earth except standing there with her.
“Hello,